U.S. jobless rate falls to lowest since April 2000

Friday’s national employment report for the month of May is one to remember, marking the nation’s lowest jobless rate since April 2000 and the continued rise of wages.

The U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs in May, above economists’ consensus expectation of 185,000, the U.S. Labor Department said this morning.

Beyond the low jobless rate, wages were the big story in this report. Wages for non-supervisor workers rose 2.8 percent in May compared to May 2017, the best annual gain since July 2009, just after the official end of the Great Recession.

With low unemployment, Dayton-area employers are feeling an acute need for qualified workers, said Doug Barry, owner of Dayton and Springfield staffing firm BarryStaff. Locally, Barry said he sees a lot of companies asking employees to work more hours, including overtime.

However, PNC Chief Economist Gus Faucher threw up a cautionary red flag, saying that the “excellent jobs report, including the solid gain in wages,” very likely means the Federal Open Market Committee will raise the federal interest rate when that committee meets in less than two weeks.

The committee “wants to take some of the pressure off of the labor market to avoid overheating in the economy that would push inflation too far above the Fed’s 2 percent inflation goal,” Faucher said.